Iron Yard Ventures, the nationally ranked startup accelerator and seed investment program in South Carolina, today announces investments into 9 startup companies for its 5th cohort

The Iron Yard Ventures, a nationally ranked startup accelerator and investment program located in South Carolina, announces their 5th cohort of companies funded in their Digital Health accelerator program.

Key highlights:

The nine startups receive $20,000 investment, office space at The Iron Yard in Spartanburg, SC, mentorship from successful tech and healthcare leaders as well as perks including marketing, branding, legal work, accounting services, office space and demo days in South Carolina as well as Health 2.0 Conference in Silicon Valley.

The teams all move to Spartanburg, SC for 3 months of heads-down focus on building their product and companies as well as reaching their next big milestones.

Iron Yard Ventures has now made 58 investments into startup companies in the last 3 years.

This year’s cohort comes to the Iron Yard from Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, San Francisco, New Jersey and Virginia.

Two of the companies in the cohort were founded by graduates of The Iron Yard Academy.

Joining the startups will be a Designer and Developer in Residence who also graduated from The Iron Yard Academy, as well as an Executive in Residence.

In 2014 Iron Yard was named a Top 6 program to launch a Healthcare startup in the United States

In 2015 Iron Yard was named an overall top 20 accelerator program in the United States by the annual MIT Seedrank Project.

Demo days will be August 13 in Spartanburg, SC and October 6 in Silicon Valley.

The nine companies each receive a $20,000 investment, office space at The Iron Yard in Spartanburg, South Carolina and access to a national network of mentors.

In addition, companies have access to the Iron Yard’s Designers and Developers in Residence program – which employs software engineers who have graduated from The Iron Yard Academy’s coding bootcamp.

Quotes:

“These nine startups and their founders are a diverse group with standout backgrounds that are solving real problems that have potential to improve our healthcare system and make significant impact in customer’s lives as well as their bottom line. Now in our 5th cohort of companies, the quality of founders we see applying continues to increase. The bar really has been raised this year. We were really impressed by the quality of startups that applied to our Digital Health program this year. That is a big testament to some of the great startups that have launched out of our accelerator program in previous cohorts and now have gone on to become successful companies..” says Marty Bauer, the Managing Director of Iron Yard Ventures. “Each year we focus on improving the value that Iron Yard offers to the startups we fund. This year that includes bringing on new mentors and partners as well as additional fulltime Designers and Developers in Residence to help our companies make the most of the next 3 months here. Finding and hiring high caliber software developers is big issue for any company as it grows. One unique asset Iron Yard companies have is access to a national network of developers coming out of our 14 code schools. Having that built-in hiring pipeline gives our portfolio companies an unfair advantage as they scale.”

“The Iron Yard has humble beginnings with a goal to elevate the tech ecosystem in the Southeast. The environment for tech companies in the Southeast continues to mature and many people outside the area are taking notice. Today, the Iron Yard brand has grown on a national scale – and these nine companies are a reflection of that growth. We still have a long way to go – and that begins now with nine new companies under the roof.”